You can claim the Education Tax Refund if the following applies to you:
- the Family Tax Benefit Part A was received by you for your children that are attending school (primary and secondary only, not tertiary). Basically if you and your partner are receiving under $100,000 combined income you are entitled to Family Tax Benefit Part A;
- you are caring for the child/ren for more than 35% of the time (that’s 4.2 months or 128 days a year);
- you stopped receiving FTB Part A because your child left school and earned too much money; or
- you were an independent student under 25 years old (which means you were probably on Austudy and had no other jobs).
Just remember that if your child only attended for one day of the year you are entitled to a full 6 months of rebate.
For example:
Lisa finished Grade 12 at the end of 2008 and started Uni in 2009. She is entitled to receive 184 days of the rebate as she was at secondary school for the period (01 July 2008 to 31 December 2008).
Charlotte started Prep in 2009. Her mother is entitled to 181 days of the rebate (01 January 2009 to 30 June 2009).
It would be good to point out that if you have a student that is going into Uni next year that they purchase any laptops, etc they will need for uni in the period July to December 2009. That way they can claim the ETR for their secondary studies!! Providing they do not earn over $12,287 for the year.